Footrot Flats has been enjoyed by people from all walks of life for many years. While it helps a bit to have some farming background, the strip is essentially about a man and his dog.

Set against a backdrop that is probably most familiar to New Zealanders and Australians, it could be any place where a few animals gather together to amuse, torment and baffle their human counterparts.

The strips first appeared in The Evening Post newspaper in 1976. Murray reckoned that The Dog in the very first cartoons looked ‘emaciated, saucer eyed, marrow nosed with an unhinged jaw and a tongue like a chewed necktie.

But the characters developed, and Murray’s daily cartoons went on to appear in over 200 papers in New Zealand and Australia. It popped up in  a few other countries too, like Denmark, where it was translated and re-named ‘Faehunden’

Increasing popularity led to compilation books and merchandising. A stage play was written and an amusement park took on a Footrot Flats theme. Then, in 1986, Footrot Flats A Dog’s Tail Tale, New Zealand’s first animated feature film was released.

Murray stopped drawing Footrot Flats in 1995. He noted that The Dog would, by then, be old and his muzzle streaked with grey … and he couldn’t let that happen to his old mate. So, he retired the strip, reflecting that, in Footrot Flats, he was ‘Just happy to have struck something people like’.